REPRINT  FROM 


“No  Retreat”  Number  of 
“All  the  World” 

/ 

'T? . 6 . 6peer- 


The  Board  of  Foreign  Missions  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church  in  the  U.  S.  A. 
156  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York 


What  Is  to  Be  Done  With  the 
Foreign  Missions  Deficit  ? 


The  whole  Church  knows  that  the 
Board  of  Foreign  Missions  ended  the 
last  fiscal  year  on  March  31st  with  a 
deficit  of  $292,150.16.  A good  part  of 
the  Church  knows  also  how  the  deficit 
arose.  It  did  not  arise  from  any  un- 
warranted or  injudicious  expansion  of 
the  work.  The  work  was  enlarged 
during  the  year  with  the  full  approval 
of  the  Executive  Commission  and  the 
General  Assembly.  But  it  was  not 
unduly  enlarged.  The  increase  was  only 
the  normal  increase  which  had  been 
made  year  after  year.  It  presumed  no 
greater  rate  of  increase  of  gifts  than  had 
been  made  in  preceding  years.  It  fell 
far  short  of  what  the  work  demanded. 
But  the  contributions  of  the  year  did 
not  equal  the  necessities  and  the  new 
year  has  begun,  accordingly,  with  the 
largest  deficit  which  the  Board  has  ever 
known. 

What  is  to  be  done  with  it?  The 
General  Assembly  considered  this  ques- 
tion and  appointed  a representative  com- 
mittee with  the  Moderator  as  Chairman 
to  raise  this  deficit  and,  at  the  sugges- 
tion of  the  Foreign  Board,  to  include 


also  the  deficit  of  the  Board  of  Home 
^Missions,  which  was  $137,895.79. 

These  deficits  must  be  raised.  The 
work  at  home  is  just  entering  on  a new 
epoch.  It  should  enter  it  not  only  with- 
out encumbrance  but  with  greatly  en- 
larged resources.  And  the  reasons  why 
the  deficit  on  Foreign  Missions  must  be 
provided  are  clear  and  urgent. 

In  the  first  place,  there  can  be  NO 
RETREAT.  If  the  deficit  is  not 
specially  provided  it  will  have  to  be  met 
by  contracting  the  work  or  by  halting  the 
advance  for  several  years,  which  will 
mean  retreat,  as  the  whole  world  is 
under  movement  to-day,  and  to  stand 
still  is  to  fall  back.  We  cannot  do  this. 

In  the  second  place,  the  work  repre- 
sented by  the  deficit  has  been  done  and 
is  still  going  on.  Not  only  is  there  need 
of  the  $292,000,  but  in  the  current  fiscal 
year  there  must  be  contributions  to 
prevent  the  recurrence  of  the  same 
deficit  this  year  with  an  increase,  for  the 
work  for  1914-1915  is  a larger  work 
than  ever  before.  Quite  apart  from  the 
deficit  of  last  year  there  will  have  to  be 
an  increase  in  the  gifts  of  the  churches 
and  Sunday  Schools  and  Women’s 
Boards  of  60  per  cent,  over  the  gifts 
of  last  year  in  order  to  meet  the  full 
needs  of  the  current  year.  To  ensure 
the  provision  of  this  increased  amount, 
the  deficit  should  be  raised  as  an  extra 
effort. 


3 


In  the  third  place,  the  deficit  impends 
most  discouragingly  not  over  the  Board 
but  upon  the  missionaries.  There  are 
now  1,226  missionaries  from  our  Church 
in  the  Missions  abroad.  To  furnish  per- 
sonal support  and  living  accommoda- 
tions and  the  actual  necessities  of  the 
work  for  these  missionaries  requires  an 
average  appropriation  of  $1,012.50  per 
missionary.  To  cut  this  down  or  to 
threaten  to  cut  it  down  is  a shadow  upon 
each  missionary’s  spirit.  Let  it  be 
remembered  that  upon  this  amount  the 
missionaries  themselves  are  maintained, 
and  that  in  addition  they  employed 
5,766  native  workers,  and  conducted 
1,781  colleges,  training  schools,  medical 
schools,  theological  seminaries,  high 
schools,  and  elementary  schools  with 
64,687  pupils,  3,104  Sunday  Schools 
with  154,139  pupils,  173  hospitals  and 
dispensaries  with  305,035  patients,  and 
ten  presses  issuing  95,105,452  pages  last 
year.  All  this  costs  less  than  one-half  the 
annual  budget  of  Columbia  University 
alone.  Is  it  conceivable  that  this  small 
amount  should  be  reduced  by  throwing 
the  deficit  back  upon  the  missionaries? 
Surely  not  by  Christians. 

In  the  fourth  place,  all  the  world  con- 
ditions which  we  face  to-day  demand 
that  there  should  be  no  withdrawal  or 
retrenchment.  In  Japan  the  present-day 
opportunity  exceeds  any  known  in  past 
years.  The  great  village  population, 


4 


embracing  85  per  cent,  of  the  Japanese 
people,  is  accessible  now.  The  students 
are  more  open  than  ever  before.  The 
leaders  of  the  nation  have  recognized 
and  declared  the  nation’s  need  of  religion 
and  have  called  on  Christianity  to  do 
its  utmost  to  meet  this  need.  In  China 
the  temporal^'  readjustment  of  the 
republic  to  benevolently  despotic  rule, 
so  far  from  shutting  the  door  of  oppor- 
tunity, has  opened  it  yet  wider. 
Missions  have  an  absolutely  free  and 
unabridged  field  and  the  crowds  who 
listen  in  the  country'  are  greater  and 
more  interested  than  ever.  The  Rev. 
Du  Bois  S.  Morris  writes  in  a recent 
letter  from  Hwai  Yuen  of  his  last 
country  trip; 

“As  I look  back  over  the  trip,  the 
one  thing  which  remains  most  clearly  in 
my  mind  is  the  new  eagerness  on  the 
part  of  these  many  people  to  listen.  I 
have  often  been  in  crowds  during  my 
life  in  China,  but  never  before  in  such 
listening  crowds,  never  when  there  were 
so  many  who  seemed  to  come,  not 
because  of  curiosity,  but  because  they 
wanted  to  hear  about  God.  It  is  a very 
inspiring  memor}’,  and  a very  sobering 
one,  too,  for  how  are  we  meeting  this 
opportunity?  How  are  we  entering  into 
these  new  doors  which  God  has  so 
wonderfully  opened  for  us  ? Perhaps 
we  should  meet  it  with  the  same  prayer 
that  was  overheard  among  the  women 


0 


in  Meng  Chen.  A room  full  were  try- 
ing to  memorize  the  Lord’s  Prayer. 
There  was  much  noise  and  confusion, 
and  one  faithful  old  soul  trying  in  vain 
to  keep  up,  finally  went  off  to  a corner, 
and  she  was  heard  there  repeating  a 
little  prayer  of  her  own.  It  was  short, 
and  she  said  it  softly,  again  and  again 
— ‘O  Lord,  thankful  and  unworthy.’  ” 

In  India  the  census  results  just  pub- 
lished have  astonished  the  British 
Government  with  their  evidence  of  the 
spread  of  Christianity,  especially  among 
the  village  people. 

The  total  number  of  Christians  in 
India  at  the  time  of  the  census  was 
3,876,203,  or  twelve  per  mile  of  the 
population.  During  the  decade  since 
the  previous  census,  the  increase  was 
32.6  per  cent.,  and  the  number  of  Chris- 
tains  has  more  than  doubled  since  1881. 
The  proportional  increase  is  by  far  the 
greatest  in  the  Panjab,  where  there  are 
now  three  times  as  many  Christians  as 
in  1901  ; in  the  Central  Provinces  and 
Berar  the  increase  is  169  per  cent.,  and 
in  Hyderabad,  Assam  and  the  United 
Provinces  the  increases  are  136,  89,  and 
75  per  cent.,  respectively.  Lutherans, 
chiefly  found  in  Madras  and  in  Behar 
and  Orissa,  have  increased  by  41  per 
cent.,  and  Methodist  adherents  are 
two  and  a half  times  as  numerous  as 
a decade  ago.  Presbyterians  have 
achieved  even  more  remarkable  results. 


6 


With  181,000  adherents  they  are  more 
than  three  times  as  numerous  as  in  1901. 
The  Panjab  has  shown  a phenomenal 
increase  among  Presbyterians,  whose 
numbers  have  grown  from  5,000  to 
95,000  in  the  ten  years. 

As  to  the  effect  of  Christianity  on 
the  converts,  Mr.  Blunt,  one  of  the 
Census  Superintendents,  draws  attention 
to  the  greater  cleanliness  of  dress  and 
habits  among  converts  as  compared  with 
the  classes  from  whom  they  are  drawn. 
"The  new  convert,  maybe,  is  no  better 
than  his  predecessors ; but  a new  genera- 
tion, the  children  of  the  first  generation 
of  converts,  is  now  growing  up.  . . . 

The  children  of  the  converts,  born  in 
Christianity,  are  verj'  different  from 
their  parents ; their  grandchildren  will 
be  better  still.  It  is  this  which  provides 
the  other  side  to  the  black  picture  so 
often  drawn  of  the  inefficiency  of  Chris- 
tian conversion.  . . . The  Hindu 

fellows  of  these  converts  have  now  to 
acknowledge,  not  only  that  they  are  in 
many  material  ways  better  off  than 
themselves,  but  that  they  are  also  better 
men.”  The  Mysore  Superintendent, 
himself  a Hindu,  says  that  mission- 
aries work  mainly  among  the  backward 
classes,  and  “that  the  enlightening 
influence  of  Christianity  is  patent  in  the 
higher  standard  of  comfort  of  the  con- 
verts, and  their  sober,  disciplined,  and 
busy  lives.” 


In  every  mission  field  conditions  like 
these  can  be  discerned.  There  are 
difficulties  enough  and  the  true  fruitage 
is  gathered  slowly,  but  the  opportunities 
are  simply  boundless.  The  Qiurch 
never  had  anything  like  them  in  other 
days.  Dare  we  neglect  or  reject  them 
now? 

All  these  conditions  call  “No  Retreat.” 
“Clear  away  the  deficit,”  they  say,  “and 
go  forward.” 

A special  fund  for  this  purpose  was 
opened  before  the  General  Assembly  by 
Mr.  Dwight  H.  Day,  Treasurer  of  the 
Board  of  Foreign  Missions,  156  Fifth 
Avenue,  New  York  City,  and  special 
gifts  are  asked  for  this  fund,  apart  from 
and  in  addition  to  the  contributions  of 
churches  or  individuals  to  the  regular 
work  of  all  the  Boards  this  year,  which 
must  be  not  only  maintained  but  in- 
creased. Contributions  large  and  small 
will  be  specially  acknowledged  for  the 
“No  Retreat  Fund.”  This  fund  is  in 
association  with  the  joint  deficit  fund 
of  the  Home  and  Foreign  Boards 
handled  by  Mr.  Olin.  ^ 

Robert  E.  Speer. 


Form  No.  2228 


December  1,  1914. 


